The Colombian Commission of Jurists, an ICJ affiliate, delivered an oral statement during the Interactive Dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice, Reparations and Guarantees of Non-recurrence, and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, at the Human Rights Council.
ICJ supported a joint written statement by civil society organizations highlighting threats to privacy and other human rights engendered by electronic surveillance, and calling for the establishment of a UN mechanism on the issue, as the UN Human Rights Council discussed the issue in Geneva.
The organizations urge the Council to establish a dedicated special procedure mandate on the right to privacy for the following reasons:
The full written statement, submitted by Human Rights Watch and endorsed by the other organisations, can be downloaded here (ICJ-UN-HRC27-JointStatementPrivacy-12092014) in PDF format.
The ICJ, Amnesty and independent experts Eugene R. Fidell, Elizabeth L. Hillman, Nancy Duff Campbell, made a submission for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States on the failure of the US military justice system to comply with the State’s international human rights obligations.
USA-Military Justice system UPR-Advocacy-non legal submission-2014 (full text in pdf)
The ICJ and other leading NGOs have called on the President and member states of the Human Rights Council, as well as the government of Sri Lanka, to take action to ensure no-one faces reprisals for cooperating with the United Nations.
Matt Pollard and Alex Conte, of the ICJ’s International Law and Protection Programmes, will give presentations during the Global Consultation on the Right to Challenge the Lawfulness of Detention, to be held in Geneva on 1-2 September 2014.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in cooperation with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, will convene the Consultation. The aim of the two-day meeting is to seek input on the development by the Working Group of draft basic principles and guidelines on remedies and procedures on the right of anyone deprived of his or her liberty, by arrest or detention, to bring proceedings before court, in order that the court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his or her detention and order his or her release if the detention is not lawful.
ICJ experts, Matt Pollard and Alex Conte, will be members of two panel discussions during the Global Consultation, respectively on the framework, scope and content of the right to court review of detention and on exercise of that right in situations of armed conflict, state of emergency or for counter-terrorism purposes.
The ICJ has already made two written submissions to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the subject, in November 2013 and April 2014.
Go to the OHCHR webpage on the Global Consultation
See the ICJ’s written submissions to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Tunisia: Quash sham conviction and sentence of judges’ association President, Anas Hmedi
The UN Human Rights Council makes significant but limited progress in addressing human rights around the world, as atrocities multiply in the Middle East and elsewhere
ICJ hosts an African Regional Convening in Kenya on Transformative Equality Jurisprudence
Russian Federation: Arbitrarily detained human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler must be released